Bastien Vivès' Polina set for UK publication next year

 Bastien Vivès' Polina (due to be published by Jonathan Cape in the UK in June 2013) was awarded l'Association des critiques de Bandes Dessinées at this year's Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Polina recounts the joys and torments of a young Russian ballerina in the world of classical and contemporary ballet. 

Vivès' A Taste of Chlorine was previously published to much critical acclaim in the UK. The Observer described it as "extraordinarily beautiful" and the Independent wrote "Every once in a while, a graphic novel comes along that warrants the kind of attention more typically bestowed upon the likes of the Booker shortlist. Bastien Vivès's A Taste of Chlorine is one such book."

In other good news for Cape, Guy Delisle's Jerusalem (to be published in August 2012) was also awarded 'Best Album' award.

The Angoulême International Comics Festival is the largest in Europe. 11 prizes known as the "Fauves d'Angoulême" were awarded in Angoulême on Sunday 29th January 2012, the last day of the 39th edition of the festival. They reward comic books published in French between December 2010 and November 2011; 58 books were shortlisted this year.

Rebellion Takes on Solaris

Missed this owing to holidays, but just to note here 2000AD publishers Rebellion's acquisition of the Solaris book publishing imprint from Games Workshop, completed earlier this month for an undisclosed sum.

Solaris offers a mixture of new and traditional science fiction, fantasy and horror books and has many bestselling titles from both upcoming and established names such as Brian Lumley, Keith Brooke, Gail Z. Martin, Eric Brown and Simon R. Green, amongst others.

The publisher recently concluded a three-book deal for Australian fantasy writer Rowena Cory Daniells, via agent John Jarrold. The series is entitled King Rolen’s Kin and the first book, provisionally called Byren's Bane, is due for publication in early 2010.

Solaris will sit alongside, and be run in parallel with, Rebellion's own Abaddon Books. Games Workshop will now focus its attention on its Black Library imprint.

"We've been aware of the Solaris imprint for some years now and have admired its success with fantastic stories and great writers," commented Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion. "Acquiring Solaris will allow us to continue to push our publishing trajectory upwards and expand the quantity, whilst maintaining the quality, of all our titles."

Rebellion has also entered into a sales and distribution agreement with Simon and Schuster which means the CBS-owned book publisher and distributor will continue to handle sales, distribution and fulfilment of all Solaris titles for all new and backlist titles to trade and specialty accounts.